OPINIONJOHN BRUMMETT: Nope, still no Sharia law
by
John Brummett
|
February 8, 2018 at 4:30 a.m.

A constitutional showdown looms over whether a scaredy-cat president may legally hide from a prosecutor because neither the truth nor perjury works for him. Meanwhile, as that develops, let's change the subject to equally low-brow Arkansas politics.

Here's a campaign-trail quotation the other day from your normally sense-making governor, Asa Hutchinson. He said: "Let me be clear. I oppose Sharia law. Furthermore, I oppose Sharia law being used in Arkansas courts."

Thank goodness we've got that straight.

You're probably wondering a couple of things: Who in the heck ever accused Hutchinson of favoring a legal system based on the Koran and Islam?

And who in the heck ever did, or threatened to do, any Sharia law in an Arkansas courtroom?

Jan Morgan did it. That's the answer to the first part. And nobody, as far anyone knows--and we'd probably have heard otherwise--ever applied any Sharia law in an Arkansas courtroom. That's the answer to the second part.

What we have here is Arkansas political dialogue 2018, unevolved from Arkansas political dialogue 1930, 1957 or the go-go 1980s with that sheriff, Tommy Robinson.

Without prejudice and fear, Arkansas politics wouldn't have any heritage at all--except for that good period, 1966-2010, meaning from Rockefeller until the emergence of all this current madness.

She said the other night at a Jonesboro-area Tea Party event that Asa is a Democrat, without meaning it as a compliment. That's because he tries to make government work, and, in fact, has made it work.

Morgan said she will protect the state from Sharia law, and that Asa plainly won't do the same. She explained that he didn't support a bill to ban it that was filed by state Sen. Linda Collins-Smith, who leads the Arkansas General Assembly in eye-rolls behind her back.

Hutchinson declined to sign the bill when it passed--as it did easily, of course, because nobody in Arkansas Republican politics wants to get caught in cahoots with ISIS. Hutchinson chose to let the bill become law without his signature.

He said the bill offered a solution in search of a problem and that we really don't need laws that don't fix anything or serve any purpose.

Hutchinson says he's practiced a lot of law in Arkansas courts and never run into a single judge doing any Sharia.

Aha, said the Gun Goddess in Northeast Arkansas, asserting that Asa must be in favor of Sharia law because he merely let the ban become law without affirmatively signing it.

To hear her tell it, Asa took a powder on putting a quietus on the Muslim-ism that spreads faster and deadlier than the flu across rural Arkansas.

Morgan says there absolutely will be no Sharia law during her governorship, which I strongly suspect is true. Or in her lifetime. Or in a newborn baby's lifetime.

If this great state is ever going to be destroyed, it's going to be from within--not its borders, necessarily, but the national ones, based on the potential assault on our constitutional system looming from the reportedly non-Muslim, and preposterous, second-place president--the one escorted by members of the electoral college from his place-horse performance to the winner's circle.

In case I've not mentioned it before, let me explain that Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by a wider margin than Richard Nixon lost to JFK, or Gerald Ford lost to Jimmy Carter. He lost the popular vote by the population of Arkansas, give or take, based on the 2010 Census, which was conducted before all these Muslims snuck into Arkansas and took over the courts.

Morgan also has banned Muslims from her shooting range in Hot Springs, except that the people who got her scared turned out to be Hindus.

You can't always tell a person's religion by skin shade.

So, in a moment of mischief, I mentioned the other day that I might start writing columns encouraging progressive types in Arkansas to cross over and vote for Morgan in the Republican primary to burden the GOP with her as the nominee.

What I got back was panicked pleading that I not do that. If nominated, she would win the general election for sure, these people told me.

At least we'd have the Muslims on the run. And a couple of highly confused Hindus.

"Vote for Morgan. Arkansas must bottom out before it can get better."

I suppose that's too long for a bumper sticker.

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John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is a member of the Arkansas Writers' Hall of Fame. Email him at jbrummett@arkansasonline.com. Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.